Federico Gambarini/European Pressphoto Agency





Pina Bausch, the choreographer and exponent of the Neo-Expressionist form of German dance known as Tanztheater, died Tuesday in Wuppertal. She was 68.

The Wuppertal Dance Theater in western Germany, where she had served as director, announced the death. It did not give the cause, but said Ms. Bausch’s ”unexpectedly fast” death came five days after a cancer diagnosis, the Associated Press reported.

In a review of Ms. Bausch’s “Bamboo Blues” that was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December, Alastair Macaulay wrote that her work could be “strikingly picturesque, always fluid in its comings and goings” as it “switches between episodes of sensual impulsiveness; coy, catwalklike audience-awareness; rushing scenes of harrowing need or anxiety; and diverse aspects of melancholia.”

In an interview last year, the elusive choreographer talked about how the many places she visited influenced her movement. Julie Bloom has more here.

A full obituary by Daniel J. Wakin is here.

Read an appraisal by Alastair Macaulay here.

View a slide show of her life and career here.